Hyper-V Architecture Explained (Types, Virtualization, Cloud Computing)

Microsoft Hyper-V is Microsoft’s native hypervisor or virtualization platform. Hyper-V enables administrators to use their hardware by virtualizing several operating systems to run off a single physical server simultaneously.

You can virtualize server operating systems within the Windows phone environments or the data center on your devices using Hyper-V. It is also an excellent tool for developers searching for a safe sandbox to test software.

Types of Hyper-V

There are two critical types of hypervisors: type 1 and type 2. A type 1 hypervisor functions as a lightweight operating system and operates directly on the host’s hardware. A type 2 hpyervisor is like a software layer on an operating system.

Type 1 hypervisors are highly secure since they are remote from vulnerable operating systems. Additionally, they tend to perform more efficiently than type 2 hypervisors. These makes type 1 hypervisors suitable for data center computing requirements.

While type 1 hypervisors directly run on the computing hardware, type 2 hypervisors run on top of the host device’s operating system. Although type 2 hypervisors run in the operating system, different and additional operating systems can install on top of the hypervisor. The drawback of type 2 hypervisors is that the latency is more than type 1 hypervisors. This is because communication between the hypervisor must pass via the additional layer of the operating system.

Type 2 hypervisors are also known as client hypervisors since developers often use them with software testing and end users. Hardware acceleration technology can generate and manage virtual resources quicker by boosting processing speed for type 1 and 2 hypervisors.

Both hypervisors can operate several virtual servers on one physical device for multiple tenants. Public cloud service providers lease their server space on various virtual servers to different organizations. This type of resource sharing might result in a “noisy neighbor” effect when one tenant runs an enormous workload that interrupts the server performance for other tenants.

A type 1 hypervisor that a single organization has total control over will always perform better than a virtual server sharing a physical server’s resources. Developers can also optimize the hardware for type 1 hypervisors to boost performance, which is impossible with public servers.

Components of Hyper-V

Details of Hyper-V components are as follows:

Parent-Child Partition

The Hyper-V must contain at least one host or parent partition. The virtualization stack runs within the parent partition and has direct access to the hardware machines. The parent partition then generates the Guest Vms (child partitions), where guest operating systems such as Windows and Linux can install.

The Guest VM does not have direct access to the physical processor nor manages the processor interrupts. Instead, the hypervisor manages all interrupts to the processor and redirects them to their corresponding guest VM. This parent-child partitioning architecture allows administrators to create trust relationships between Guest VM → Parent Partition → Hypervisor which sometimes enables guest code to run in all processor rings, modes, and segments.

VM Bus

The VM Bus is a channel-like inter-partition communication protocol that can establish a communication channel between the Hyper-V host and Guest VM. It also assists during machine enumeration on systems with several active virtualized partitions. This component is in charge of avoiding any additional layer of communication.

VSP — VSC

Virtual Service Client (VSC) and Virtual Service Provider (VSP) are the critical components of Hyper-V that facilitate easy and reliable communication between the Hyper-V server and Guest VMS. The VSPs always run in the Parent Partition (Host) while the corresponding VSCs run in the child partition (Guest VM). VSPs and their respective VSCs communicate with each other via VMBUS. There can only be four VSPs (Video, Network, HID, and Storage) running on an individual Hyper-V server. However, multiple VSCs can run simultaneously on the same Hyper-V Server as a part of several Guest VMS. VSPs are multithreading components that run as part of the VMMS.exe and can various VSCs requests simultaneously.

VM Management Service

Virtual Machine Management Service, also known as vmms.exe or VMMS, is the key module in Microsoft Windows OS that manages every aspect of Hyper-V server virtualization. Virtual Machine Management Service is a core Hyper-V component that runs under the system account, which has similar privileges to admin accounts. The Hyper-V Virtual Machine Management Service must be running, or the Virtual machines will continue to run. But you won’t be able to control, create, or delete virtual machines until the service runs.

VM Worker Process

VM worker or vmwp.exe relates to a specific virtual machine. The Virtual Machine Management Service creates a VM Worker Process for each virtual machine running on Hyper-V. This process manages the VM.

How Hyper-V Virtualization Works

Virtualization works by isolating or abstracting a computer’s hardware from every software that might run on that hardware. Abstraction recognizes the computer’s physical resources (memory, processors, network interfaces, and storage volumes) and generates logical aliases. For instance, Hyper-V can abstract a physical process into a logical representation known as a virtual CPU or vCPU.

Hyper-V is responsible for handling all the virtual resources that it abstracts. Additionally, Hyper-V manages all data exchanges between physical resources and their virtual counterparts.

Hyper-V uses virtualized resources to generate logical representations of computers or Virtual Machines. Each VM is assigned memory, virtualized processors, network adapters, storage, and other virtualized elements, such as GPUs, which Hyper-V manages. When Hyper-V provisions a Virtual Machine, the subsequent logical instance is fully remote from the underlying hardware and every Vms established by Hyper-V. This means a virtual machine does not know the other Vms or physical computers that might share the physical device’s resources.

This logical isolation and careful resource management enable Hyper-V to create and manage several Vms on the same physical machine. Each VM is capable of functioning as a complete and fully functional computer. Virtualization allows companies to carve multiple virtual servers from a single physical server.

Once Hyper-V establishes a VM, it requires a full suite of software installation, including drivers, an OS, libraries, and a suitable enterprise application. This allows organizations to use multiple operating systems to support various workloads on the same physical computer.

The abstraction enabled by virtualization provides virtual machines with flexibility that is impossible with conventional physical software and physical computer installations. All VMS exists and runs within a computer’s physical memory space so that you can save Vms as ordinary memory image files. You can then use these saved files to create duplicate Vms on the same or different computers across the organization or save the VM at a particular time.

Similarly, you can move a VM from one virtualized computer to another. This is achieved by copying the VM of choice from the memory of a source computer to a memory space within a target computer and then permanently deleting the original VM from the source computer. In most instances, the transfer can occur without interrupting the VM or user experience.

The physical resources available on the host computer and the computing requirements of the enterprise apps running in those VMS restrict the number of VMS you can create. Once you create a VM, you can change the abstracted resources of the VM to improve the VM’s performance and increase the amount of Vms on the system.

How to Use Hyper-V in Cloud Computing

You can create a Hyper-V high-availability group using Manager. A high availability group or failover group is a group of at least two nodes. Hyper-V also runs in cluster mode, providing failover and high availability for virtual machines with minimal downtime.

While the failover service takes over and transfers the VM between nodes, the virtual machine will be inaccessible for a few seconds. The Failover Cluster Manager controls all Hyper-V clusters.

Using Hyper-V manager, admins can manage remotely or locally. Manager installs during the installation of Management Tools, which you can do with a complete installation or by installing the tools. Installing a tool only enables you to use the tools to host software on devices that fail to meet the hardware requirements.

Applications of Hyper-V in Cloud Computing

Computing environment: A Hyper-V virtual machine has the same essential elements as a physical computer, including processors, memory, networking, and storage. These components contain options and features you can configure in various ways to satisfy different needs.

Backup and Disaster Recovery: For disaster recovery, Hyper-V Replica generates a copy of a VM to be stored by the system in another physical location so that you can restore the VM from the copy. For backup, one software type uses the Volume Snapshot Service, while the other uses the saved state. This enables you to perform app-compatible backups of VSS-enabled apps.

Optimization: Each guest operating system has a set of drivers and services known as integration services. The integration services facilitate the use of the OS in a Hyper-v virtual machine.

Conclusion

• Hyper-V is a powerful virtualization software product that easily competes with other solutions such as Fusion and VM VirtualBox. The tool is especially great if you are using the Windows platform. You do not need to purchase or download it separately. However, it only functions on Windows devices, so Linux and Mac users need to install a Linux distribution.